Exploring Symbiodinium diversity and host specificity in Acropora corals from geographical extremes of Western Australia with 454 amplicon pyrosequencing
Scleractinian corals have demonstrated the ability to shuffle their endosymbiotic dinoflagellate communities (genus Symbiodinium) during periods of acute environmental stress. This has been proposed as a mechanism of acclimation, which would be increased by a diverse and flexible association with Sy...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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Blackwell Publishing Ltd
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/7441 |
| _version_ | 1848745369213599744 |
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| author | Thomas, L. Kendrick, G. Kennington, W. Richards, Zoe Stat, Michael |
| author_facet | Thomas, L. Kendrick, G. Kennington, W. Richards, Zoe Stat, Michael |
| author_sort | Thomas, L. |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Scleractinian corals have demonstrated the ability to shuffle their endosymbiotic dinoflagellate communities (genus Symbiodinium) during periods of acute environmental stress. This has been proposed as a mechanism of acclimation, which would be increased by a diverse and flexible association with Symbiodinium. Conventional molecular techniques used to evaluate Symbiodinium diversity are unable to identify genetic lineages present at background levels below 10%. Next generation sequencing (NGS) offers a solution to this problem and can resolve microorganism diversity at much finer scales. Here we apply NGS to evaluate Symbiodinium diversity and host specificity in Acropora corals from contrasting regions of Western Australia. The application of 454 pyrosequencing allowed for detection of Symbiodinium operational taxonomic units (OTUs) occurring at frequencies as low as 0.001%, offering a 10 000-fold increase in sensitivity compared to traditional methods. All coral species from both regions were overwhelmingly dominated by a single clade C OTU (accounting for 98% of all recovered sequences). Only 8.5% of colonies associated with multiple clades (clades C and D, or C and G), suggesting a high level of symbiont specificity in Acropora assemblages in Western Australia. While only 40% of the OTUs were shared between regions, the dominance of a single OTU resulted in no significant difference in Symbiodinium community structure, demonstrating that the coral-algal symbiosis can remain stable across more than 15 of latitude and a range of sea surface temperature profiles. This study validates the use of NGS platforms as tools for providing fine-scale estimates of Symbiodinium diversity and can offer critical insight into the flexibility of the coral-algal symbiosis. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T06:16:16Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-7441 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T06:16:16Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Blackwell Publishing Ltd |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-74412019-08-22T06:51:58Z Exploring Symbiodinium diversity and host specificity in Acropora corals from geographical extremes of Western Australia with 454 amplicon pyrosequencing Thomas, L. Kendrick, G. Kennington, W. Richards, Zoe Stat, Michael Scleractinian corals have demonstrated the ability to shuffle their endosymbiotic dinoflagellate communities (genus Symbiodinium) during periods of acute environmental stress. This has been proposed as a mechanism of acclimation, which would be increased by a diverse and flexible association with Symbiodinium. Conventional molecular techniques used to evaluate Symbiodinium diversity are unable to identify genetic lineages present at background levels below 10%. Next generation sequencing (NGS) offers a solution to this problem and can resolve microorganism diversity at much finer scales. Here we apply NGS to evaluate Symbiodinium diversity and host specificity in Acropora corals from contrasting regions of Western Australia. The application of 454 pyrosequencing allowed for detection of Symbiodinium operational taxonomic units (OTUs) occurring at frequencies as low as 0.001%, offering a 10 000-fold increase in sensitivity compared to traditional methods. All coral species from both regions were overwhelmingly dominated by a single clade C OTU (accounting for 98% of all recovered sequences). Only 8.5% of colonies associated with multiple clades (clades C and D, or C and G), suggesting a high level of symbiont specificity in Acropora assemblages in Western Australia. While only 40% of the OTUs were shared between regions, the dominance of a single OTU resulted in no significant difference in Symbiodinium community structure, demonstrating that the coral-algal symbiosis can remain stable across more than 15 of latitude and a range of sea surface temperature profiles. This study validates the use of NGS platforms as tools for providing fine-scale estimates of Symbiodinium diversity and can offer critical insight into the flexibility of the coral-algal symbiosis. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 2014 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/7441 10.1111/mec.12801 Blackwell Publishing Ltd restricted |
| spellingShingle | Thomas, L. Kendrick, G. Kennington, W. Richards, Zoe Stat, Michael Exploring Symbiodinium diversity and host specificity in Acropora corals from geographical extremes of Western Australia with 454 amplicon pyrosequencing |
| title | Exploring Symbiodinium diversity and host specificity in Acropora corals from geographical extremes of Western Australia with 454 amplicon pyrosequencing |
| title_full | Exploring Symbiodinium diversity and host specificity in Acropora corals from geographical extremes of Western Australia with 454 amplicon pyrosequencing |
| title_fullStr | Exploring Symbiodinium diversity and host specificity in Acropora corals from geographical extremes of Western Australia with 454 amplicon pyrosequencing |
| title_full_unstemmed | Exploring Symbiodinium diversity and host specificity in Acropora corals from geographical extremes of Western Australia with 454 amplicon pyrosequencing |
| title_short | Exploring Symbiodinium diversity and host specificity in Acropora corals from geographical extremes of Western Australia with 454 amplicon pyrosequencing |
| title_sort | exploring symbiodinium diversity and host specificity in acropora corals from geographical extremes of western australia with 454 amplicon pyrosequencing |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/7441 |